Tag Archives: insulation

The insulation went in last week. Hooray! We had lots if delays, most all of them out of anyone’s control, but the crew finished on Thursday. Immediately you could hear a difference since the sound & noise was noticeably reduced. We have noticed a bit of shrinkage vertically, but it’s very minor. Things look really good with the Air Krete so far! Hopefully this was a smart investment.

Before being scraped even with studs

After being scraped even with studs

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and I couldn’t be happier about it. That was pretty lame, I know. Anyway, we have hot water! 2 of our 3 hot water heaters now work! The little one in the attic doesn’t really matter now since we aren’t using the upstairs 1/2 bath, especially after finding out the plumbing is terrible. It turns out the fix for the non-functioning one below the house was a very quick one from the electricians.

We’ve got the walls just about ready for insulation tomorrow. By “we” I certainly don’t mean me. 😉 Joe is definitely in charge of that. My Mom has also been a huge help with the demo/cleanup in that area. A little shop vac fun tonight, and we should be good to go! All wall mounted a/c units are out, with their holes patched. All random vents/fans/holes for reasons we can’t identify are patched in, too.

Tonight is our first party at our house! With the insulation going in tomorrow, (TOMORROW!), we’re having friends over to scribble fun messages in the stud bays of our walls. Coloring on the walls? Fun, fun! Patsy Lou will love it.

And I think that’s all the semi-coherent blogging I can handle after a 4 am wake up. Photos of scribbled-in walls and insulation installation coming soon!

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Joe pulls down walls. My Mom pulls trim off the walls and de-nails it, then stores it upstairs. Joe/Mom/Wonderful friends fill dumpster. I get a phone call from Joe with that day’s surprises.

Today isn’t really any exception. Today’s surprise? A front window is smashed and laying on the living room floor. Oh geez. Hopefully we can get new glass and repair it ourselves. Professional repair isn’t exactly in the budget right now.

Just Thursday we settled on insulation. It’s going to be fantastic I think, but boy howdy did it blow our budget! Since we have exterior siding, studs, and (used to have, will hopefully have again soon) drywall or plaster and nothing else, our insulation options were limited. We couldn’t get anything that moisture could harm, mold would grow in, bugs would crawl through, or rodents would nest in. Oh, and fire retarding properties would be quite nice in our all-wooden house. Especially since we’re about to rip out the fire sprinkler system. So, we found Air Krete. It’s basically Magnesium based cement (as opposed to portland cement) that hardens around lots of tiny bubbles. It seems pretty perfect for our application. It’s also rather eco-friendly since there isn’t anything in the way of VOC’s to worry about. It’s also very durable, and has a high R value of 3.9 per inch. Magnesium mostly exists in Asia, so the embedded energy of that part of the product is high, but that seems to be the only big downside on the eco-front. It gets installed a week from Monday, so photos and more info to come then!

In other good house news, our kitchen is now bigger and I LOVE it! A random room with no obvious purpose off our hallway of a kitchen has been incorporated into the space, and we’ll eventually move most of the appliances into the area. It’s going to be a long project, but it’s neat to see the wall down and the bigger space. It wasn’t neat to find out that the wall was built with 2 x 4’s sideways and essentially just dangling from a top rail. High quality construction I tell ya. Oh well, it’s history now!

Finally, we can get to the back door and nursery without going through our bedroom now! What a concept! Joe knocked down more walls and converted closets into a great hallway, leading from just off the kitchen to the back of the house. The flow of the house is so much better, and it feels more and more like a single family home and less like an office every day.